This invention relates to surgical implants which are commonly known as stents and more particularly to stents for occluding the human ductus arteriosus, cardiac septal defects and other blood vessels needing occlusion. This invention also relates to delivery systems for such stents and to methods of manufacturing such stents.
In the fetus, the ductus arteriosus is a patent vessel connecting the pulmonary artery to the aorta. At birth, a variety of physiological changes cause the ductus to constrict and it becomes permanently closed after one or two days. In a few cases, the ductus fails to occlude completely (patent ductus), allowing blood to flow from the aorta to the pulmonary artery, compromising respiration and circulation. Serious consequences may result.
Conversely, in some other circulatory birth defects in which the ductus has closed naturally, the patient benefits when the ductus is artificially reopened.
Surgical interventions to alleviate a patent ductus arteriosus consist of either surgically ligating the leak path or implantation of a “single umbrella”, such as the C R Bard PDA Umbrella. The delivery system for this device is large and it cannot be used in very small children. The clinical approaches currently in use are problematic; the surgery is major, requires significant exposure and has an associated morbidity. Technically, considerable difficulties can be experienced in accurately siting and deploying the umbrella device because of its large delivery system.
As an alternative to surgery, pharmacological agents can be used to constrict the ductus but this technique can only be used in babies and is not always successful. Also such agents have side effects.
There are many designs of stents currently in commercial use, the Gianturco, (EP0282175) Palmatz-Schatz, Wall stent and others are well known in the art. These stents are designed for use in vessels which are several times longer than their diameter and the stents share this aspect ratio. Most designs exhibit spring resistance to radial compression but nevertheless are intended to be approximately parallel sided cylindrical tubes, once implanted. The ductus arteriosus is short with respect to its diameter and as a result conventional stent designs are the wrong shape and tend to migrate. It is quite usual for surgeons to modify existing devices to make them more appropriate for implantation in this procedure. But this is not an ideal solution to the problem.
Existing stents are intended to maintain the patency of diseased blood vessels and to minimise the risk of creating further local disease or trauma. For instance, introduction of a stent can cause intimal hyperplasia by damaging plaques on the vessel wall. Blood flow which impinges on the stent may become turbulent and create further neo intimal proliferation. For these reasons, stents are usually designed with the minimum of material to reduce their surface area.
EP-A-0666065 discloses stents for maintaining the patency of passages in the biliary, urinary or vascular system, wherein the stent is formed of a shape memory alloy (SMA) wire or mesh and can be changed thermally from a first configuration in which it has distal and proximal coiled or mesh cylindrical portions which are spaced apart, into a second configuration in which the proximal portion flares into a funnel shape which increases in diameter away from the distal portion which expands in diameter. However, such stents require a relatively large delivery system.
Other examples of stents based on SMA wire for maintaining the patency of vessels are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,868,956 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,512,338.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,192,301 and DO 233303 disclose a number of occluding stents for the ductus arteriosus based on SMA materials. However, none of these is capable of adopting a small cross-sectional area for delivery to the required site.